Coordinating Contracts for Decentralized Supply Chains with Retailer Promotional Effort

Harish Krishnan (), Roman Kapuscinski () and David A. Butz ()
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Harish Krishnan: Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z2
Roman Kapuscinski: University of Michigan Business School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
David A. Butz: University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

Management Science, 2004, vol. 50, issue 1, 48-63

Abstract: In this paper, a risk-neutral manufacturer sells a single product to a risk-neutral retailer. The retailer chooses inventories ex ante and promotional effort ex post. If the wholesale price exceeds marginal production cost, the retailer orders fewer than the joint profit-maximizing inventories. If the manufacturer attempts to coordinate inventories by buying back unsold units, then the retailer's promotional incentives are dulled. Under very general assumptions on the form of the effort function, we show that buy-backs adversely affect supply chain profits, and higher buy-back prices imply lower profits. Also, while a buy-back alone cannot coordinate the channel, coupling buy-backs with promotional cost-sharing agreements (if effort cost is observable), offering unilateral markdown allowances ex post (if demand is observable but not verifiable), or placing additional constraints on the buy-back (if demand is observable and verifiable) does result in coordination. This problem is not limited to returns policies but is shown to hold for a much larger set of contracts. The results are quite robust (e.g., when the retailer chooses effort before observing demand), but coordinating contracts become more problematic if, for example, the retailer also stocks substitutes for the manufacturer's product. Other model extensions are also discussed.

Keywords: supply chain management; sales effort; promotional effort; supply contracts; incentives; channel coordination; inventory management; buyback; returns policies; cost sharing; markdown allowance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (117)

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